The Triangle

by Specs4ever

Nancy looked at her face in the mirror. The redness was
starting to turn a little purple. By tomorrow it would be a visible bruise. The
police had taken digital pictures before they had taken Mitch away in the rear
seat of the police car. Nancy felt a bit guilty. Mitch had never laid a hand on
her ever before. She felt that it was probably her fault he had gotten so angry
with her. This never would have happened if she hadn’t listened to Carl when he
told her that for the sake of her eyesight she should leave her glasses on in
the evening, and if she did so for a while Mitch would finally get accustomed to
seeing her wearing glasses.

Nancy looked again at her reflection. Mitch hated to see her
in her wide temple black-framed glasses with the red accents and their coke
bottle lenses. Thank goodness her glasses were still intact, and were only a
little bit out of shape. She could drop by the optical store and have them
straightened tomorrow when she went to see a lawyer to see about a restraining
order against Mitch. He had never hit her before in the 5 years they had been
married, and she wasn’t going to give him another chance to use her as a
punching bag. But, Nancy wondered, what will the kids and I use for money? The
rent is paid up for the next 2 months. After that they could be out on the
street.

When Nancy was 17 she had been dating Mitch, and after a
moment of carelessness she found herself pregnant. She and Mitch got married at
a very small ceremony at City Hall. Mitch’s parents wouldn’t come, and neither
would Nancy’s mother, who was very disappointed in her daughter for allowing a
boy to have sex with her. This rift had never healed, and Nancy’s mom had passed
away just a year ago without ever seeing her 2 granddaughters. Nancy was very
sad that her mom had never forgiven her.

This was one of the big mistakes Nancy had made. The other
mistake was that she had never appeared in front of Mitch wearing glasses before
she became pregnant. Sure, Mitch knew that she wore contact lenses, and she had
told Mitch that she had very poor eyesight. But she never wore glasses around
him. Nancy had gotten her first glasses when she was 8, and she had experienced
regular prescription increases until she was 14, and had talked her mom into
letting her get contact lenses. Her contact lens powers had also increased every
year, and by the time Nancy was 17 and became pregnant by Mitch her contact
lenses were –9.00D. Without contacts Nancy felt pretty helpless, so she wore
them all her waking moments.

After Nancy and Mitch were married and had moved into their
small apartment Nancy continued wearing contacts until the baby was about 8
months along. This is when Nancy got her first pair of glasses in 4 years, and
that first night, when she tried to show Mitch her new glasses he was astonished
at how thick the lenses were. He made some very nasty comments about Nancy being
blind as a bat, and he finally told Nancy that she looked ugly wearing glasses,
and he didn’t want her wearing them around him. After the birth of Celeste,
Mitch had come home early one night and found Nancy breast-feeding Celeste while
wearing her glasses. He threw a fit, and made her go and put in her contact
lenses. From then on Nancy made sure that she had her contact lenses in the
second she heard Mitch’s steps coming up the stairs.

Mitch had not wanted Nancy to work outside the home, and
since his job in construction paid enough for them to live on, and even
accumulate a meager amount of savings, Nancy didn’t fight to be allowed to go to
work. After all, she reasoned, hiring someone to look after Celeste would
probably cost almost as much as she could earn at a low paying no skills job.
So, when Mitch wanted Nancy to have another child, she really didn’t feel that
she could argue much. Mitch obviously wanted a son, which was evident in his
disappointment when Miranda was born. But he really didn’t seem too unhappy
about having 2 daughters, and family life was fairly good for a while.

Every year Nancy seemed to require new, stronger contact
lenses and the appropriate changes in the lenses of her glasses. When Celeste
was 4, and Nancy was 22, her prescription for her glasses was –18.00D. The
lenses had been replaced 3 times in her other glasses, and this time a whole new
frame was required. So, Nancy picked a rather bold black frame with red accents
and very wide temples. She tried to show these glasses to Mitch, but his
reaction was awful. He screamed at her, and told her to not ever wear them
around him.

The following day when Nancy walked to the nearby grocery
store pushing Miranda in the stroller and dragging Celeste along by the hand
Nancy felt very depressed. She had looked at herself a number of times in the
mirror after Mitch told her she was ugly wearing these glasses. She didn’t think
she looked ugly. Yes, the sides of her face looked like the powerful lenses of
the glasses sank them in a lot, and that looked a bit weird. But the glasses
themselves didn’t look bad on her. She walked through the store picking up the
few items that she had come after. Even with her new glasses Nancy didn’t have
wonderful eyesight, and every once in a while she would take something off the
shelf, and bring the box up close to her glasses so she could read the
ingredients. She was struggling to reach the product on the top shelf when she
heard a voice.

“Let me get that for you Ms.” Carl said.

“Here you are. Say, I really like your glasses. They
definitely suit a pretty girl like you. I bet your husband loves you wearing
them.” Carl had said.

“Well then he is a fool. I think you are one of the most
beautiful girls that I have seen wearing glasses in ages. I’m not sure I have
ever seen a girl look as pretty as you do in a pair of glasses before.” Carl
then told her.

Nancy and the girls left the market with her purchases. Nancy
knew she wasn’t beautiful. She was a little too fat around the waist, and she
had been promising herself that she was going to start walking to see if she
could get rid of her rolls and her thunder thighs, as she called them. Mitch
didn’t seem to care if she put on weight. Actually he seemed to want to fatten
her up, as he had always told her that she looked like skin and bones before.
But she knew she wasn’t bad looking, even when she wore glasses, so it was a
nice boost to her ego to have someone tell her that she looked beautiful.

The next day Nancy asked Mrs. Dunwoody, the widow who owned
the house their apartment was in, if she could watch the girls while she went
over to the market. Mrs. Dunwoody, a kindly old widow agreed, and Nancy was
going to bring her back some supplies from the market as well.

She walked up and down the aisles. Subconsciously she was
looking for the guy who had complimented her on her glasses yesterday. Just then
she spotted him walking down the aisle towards her. She looked directly at him
and smiled at him. He smiled right back, and walked up to her. Nancy read from
his nametag. “Carl Henderson asst. mgr.”

“Hi Carl. I’m Nancy Stevens. Thanks again for helping me out
yesterday.” Nancy said, amazed that she had been so bold.

“You are quite welcome. You must live nearby. Do you come in
everyday?” Carl asked.

“I have to walk about a mile to get here. But I am trying to
loose weight, so I am going to walk it every day. My landlady is looking after
the girls.” Nancy said.

“I’ll buy you a coffee. I am on break now.” Carl said.

“I shouldn’t. I am a married lady, but I will take you up on
the offer as long as you realize that it is just a coffee.” Nancy boldly
replied.

“I wish you weren’t married, but since you are, I can accept
just the coffee with a pretty lady part.” Carl answered.

This started a routine. Nancy would leave the girls with Mrs.
Dunwoody and would walk to the grocery store, where she would have a coffee with
Carl, pick up a few supplies for Mrs. Dunwoody and herself, and then she would
walk home. Carl didn’t know it, but often in the afternoon as she sat around the
apartment reading, Nancy would fantasize about having a relationship with
someone like Carl, a guy who would accept her wearing her glasses. And, Nancy
didn’t know it, but at night after work Carl would also sit around his apartment
doing a little fantasizing of his own.

Nancy was pleased to have someone to confide in. Mitch had
kept her pretty much under his thumb. One day after walking back home Nancy went
to put her contact lenses in. The right lens was painful, very painful, but
Nancy kept it in until she went to bed. The following morning after Mitch had
left for work Nancy looked at her eye, and it was all red and sore looking. She
didn’t walk to the store to see Carl that morning, but instead got an emergency
appointment with her eye doctor.

“You have had something in your eye that got under your
contact lens and scratched your cornea. It will take a month, maybe longer
before you can wear contact lenses again,” said the doctor.

Nancy was devastated. She didn’t know what to do. That
afternoon she put in her left contact lens and tried to function. But she
couldn’t adapt unless she kept her right eye closed. The blur from her right eye
overpowered the clear vision from her left eye, and she had double blurred
vision. It was awful. Fortunately she got through the night. The next morning
she grabbed her glasses from the bedside table. It was funny. Mitch couldn’t
stand to see her wearing them, but it didn’t seem to bother him that she kept
her glasses right beside her bed, so she could grab them in the middle of the
night, or when she got up in the morning after he had gone to work.

“Where were you yesterday?” Carl asked.

So, Nancy told Carl the story, and of how she went around the
house the previous evening with one eye closed.

“Try an eye patch.” Carl suggested.

Nancy purchased a flesh colored eye patch, and that evening
she wore it over her right eye. Mitch seemed to accept this, even when she told
him it could be for a month or 2.

Everything would have been fine. Nancy felt she could carry
on like this. But Miranda developed pink eye before Nancy could go back to
wearing contact lenses. Nancy knew she was in trouble when she woke up one
morning and saw that her left eye was all red and inflamed. She took her usual
walk down to see Carl and have coffee with him. That was when Carl told her to
stand up to Mitch. She had rights too, and she had the right to be able to wear
her glasses to see.

When Mitch arrived home that evening the trouble had started.
Nancy tried to explain the problem, but Mitch did not seem to understand. He
took his dinner and ate in front of the television. When Nancy put the girls to
bed she noticed that Mitch had 3 empty beer bottles beside him, and he was
working on his 4th. She was a little worried. Mitch wasn’t a passive drunk, and
had gotten in a few scrapes when he was drinking. She came back into the living
room.

“If you are going to sit with me take those ugly glasses off
your face.” Mitch said threateningly.

“Mitch honey, I can’t. I am blind without them.” Nancy
replied.

Mitch stood up and headed towards her. Nancy figured that she
had better get out of here, and stood up as well. That is when Mitch caught her
with the back of his hand, and knocked her across the room. Her glasses went
flying, and she fell. As Nancy fell she knocked into the phone, and she grabbed
it. She didn’t need her glasses to find the 911 buttons. Mitch saw what she was
doing, and he grabbed the phone from her hand. She couldn’t see a thing, but she
knew he had pushed “end”. Was he going to hit her again? Fortunately for Nancy
he didn’t, but she couldn’t see anything except for smears of colors. She
worried about where her glasses were and was afraid to move in case she stepped
on them.

Mitch didn’t realize it, but when a 911 call is interrupted
they have all the information that is required to pinpoint where the call came
from. Nancy was still lying there when a knock came at the apartment door.

“Open up, this is the police,” the voice said.

Nancy couldn’t see what was going on, but she could hear
Mitch arguing with the voice.

“Are you all right Ms?” a female voice asked.

“My glasses. He knocked off my glasses. I can’t see a thing
without them.” Nancy replied.

“Here they are honey. My, I see what you mean. They are thick
aren’t they,” said the voice.

Nancy tried to tell the police that she didn’t want to lay
any charges. But the officer’s told her that it was no longer up to her. They
found evidence that an act of violence had been committed, and they were going
to have to charge Mitch. They would be booking him, and he would be in jail
overnight.

Nancy was in a daze. She was so glad that her glasses were
still safe, but she didn’t know what to do about Mitch. It was only 9:00 pm, so
she called Mitch’s boss. She explained what had happened, and that Mitch would
be in jail until he was bailed out. He said he would look after that in the
morning, so Nancy went to bed, and slept fitfully. That night Nancy dreamt about
Carl, and when she awoke the next morning her crotch was all wet.

First thing in the morning Nancy got Celeste ready for
kindergarten. Then she asked Mrs. Dunwoody to look after Miranda.

“Child, there is no excuse for a man to ever hit a woman.
That guy of yours is trouble. This might be a good time to get rid of him.” Mrs.
Dunwoody advised.

Nancy knew she had confided a little too much in Mrs.
Dunwoody to argue the point.

“I need him. I have no money to pay the rent.” Nancy said.

“Forget the rent. I will let you and the girls live here free
if I have to. You are a good girl, and you deserve better. But you best get on
down to social assistance and file for some relief.” Mrs. Dunwoody said.

Nancy went to the bank first, where she closed out their
joint savings account. She was pleasantly surprised with the amount they had
saved. After she had dropped by the optician to have her glasses straightened,
she went on to the battered woman’s shelter, where the girl advised her of her
rights, and put her in contact with a lawyer who would help her. Nancy went to
the lawyer, who arranged for a restraining order to be served on Mitch. A
locksmith changed the locks on the apartment doors, and gave Nancy the new keys.
Then later that afternoon Nancy walked over to the market.

“That’s quite a shiner. Did he do it?” Carl asked when he saw
her face.

“He really hates me wearing glasses.” Nancy said.

“Dump the guy and I’ll take his place. I really love you
wearing glasses.” Carl replied.

“Tempting, but I have to sort this through first.” Nancy told
him.

“I will be waiting in the wings.” Carl said.

When Nancy arrived back at the apartment she collected the
girls and went into the apartment. There was a message on the phone from Mitch,
telling her he was sorry, and that he wanted to come home. She called his cell.

Mitch was angry. The restraining order had been served. “What
is this shit?”

“Mitch, I tried to tell you last night. I have an eye
infection and I can’t wear contact lenses anymore until it clears up. And, maybe
I don’t want to wear contact lenses anymore. You can’t stand me wearing glasses.
I have to wear glasses. The solution is for us to each go our own way.” Nancy
told him.

“Can I at least come over to see you, and get my things? And,
can I say goodbye to the girls?” Mitch asked.

“Sure, as long as there is another party present. I think
Mrs. Dunwoody will come up while you are here.

So Mitch came over and got his belongings. Nancy was
surprised when Mitch offered to keep the rent paid, but she realized that he
knew that he had better keep things on good terms, or it would cost him in the
long run.

Over the next few weeks Nancy filed for divorce. She didn’t
see as much of Carl as she had previously, but now their time together was
different. They were dating. The red and black glasses had never been quite
right after Mitch had knocked them off her face, so Carl took Nancy for a new
eye examination, and bought her another pretty pair of black framed glasses with
blue accents in her new, slightly stronger prescription. Nancy asked Carl if she
should get new contact lenses as well, but Carl told her not to waste her money.

A few months after the divorce was final Nancy and Carl were
married. Nancy thought it was wonderful living with Carl. He would clean her
glasses for her every morning before he placed them on her face. Carl wanted her
to wear her glasses when they had sex, and Nancy liked this, because it meant
that she could see the expression of pleasure on Carl’s face.

Nancy gave Carl the son that Mitch had wanted. Mitch still
dropped by to visit his daughters, and Nancy was pleased about this. She had
wondered if Mitch would stop seeing the girls when they both got glasses at the
same time, but if he had a problem with the girls wearing glasses he kept it to
himself.

The only problem Nancy had was with Carl. Carl couldn’t stop
himself from buying Nancy new glasses. They had only been married 6 months when
Carl insisted that Nancy have another eye exam. Sure enough, Nancy needed a
slight increase, and Carl bought her new glasses. Then he had new lenses put
into her other glasses so she had 2 pairs to choose from. Nancy couldn’t argue
that it hadn’t been nice to have a choice between 2 pairs of –19.00D glasses.
After all, since she quit wearing contact lenses she really needed to have a
spare pair. But, when Carl took her back to the eye doctor in another 6 months,
and Nancy saw that her prescription had jumped to –19.50D she was a little
surprised when Carl had the lenses changed in the other 2 pairs. Now she had 3
pairs to choose from.

“What is your plan here honey? Are you going to buy me a pair
for every day of the week?” Nancy asked.

“How about a pair for every day of the month? But first your
prescription will have to stop climbing sweetheart.” Carl told her.

Finally after Carl had purchased her 6 pairs of glasses, and
had brought the prescription of all of her old pairs up to her current –21.00D
prescription Nancy put her foot down. Nancy suspected that rushing out to get a
new prescription every 6 months had increased her myopia unnecessarily.

“No, I will not go for my 6 month eye exam Carl. I think
having my eyes tested, and getting stronger glasses every 6 months is pushing my
prescription higher and higher too soon. I’m only 28 years old and I am up to a
–21.00D prescription. I can’t go much higher and still be able to see well. I
think the girls and I should only go once a year from now on.” Nancy
emphatically told Carl one day.

So, Carl backed off, and Nancy and the girls went to once a
year eye exams from then on. But it seemed that Nancy still was experiencing
prescription increases every year, and by the time she was 30 Nancy was wearing
a prescription of –22.50D for both eyes. Carl changed the lenses in all of
Nancy’s glasses, and now she had 8 pairs. Carl built a special display stand out
of mirrored plastic, with holes for the temples to go through, and plastic pegs
for the nose to rest on. The look of the glasses through the mirrored plastic
was quite something. Some pairs were high index plastic, 3 pairs were myodiscs.
Nancy had her favorite pairs to wear around during the day, but she switched to
a different pair every evening to greet Carl at the door. And, unbeknown to
Carl, Nancy had ordered a special pair of glasses to wear in bed. She requested
regular old CR39 plastic for the lenses, and she selected a frame with a fairly
large eye size. The temples were hinged well back from the face of the frame,
and these glasses were extremely thick, Carl loved them from the first time he
saw Nancy wearing them, and the signal that Nancy was in the mood was that she
would put these glasses on while they were sitting around in the evening. Carl
never failed to pick up on the signal.